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Story Highlights

I became hooked on kombucha a few years ago but really didn't know a whole lot about how the fizzy beverage was made.

I knew vaguely that it was a fermented tea beverage, but beyond that, I was satisfied to enjoy drinking kombucha from Humm (made in Bend) and Brew Dr. (made in Portland) and leave the details behind a veil of mystery.

Kombucha's popularity the past few years has spread. Roth's Fresh Markets and Natural Grocers has carried it for a while, and you can even get it on draft at LifeSource and Liquor Outlet to fill growlers with. Recently, WinCo even began carrying it. It's not a health food store product anymore. So when I heading to Bend last week, I was thrilled to learn that the friendly folks at Humm would give me a tour of their facility and lift the veil of mystery and enlighten me to the process of kombucha making.

I was prepared for it to be a scientific process, like beer making or wine making, which also involves fermentation, but I was surprised that there's a little bit of New Age hippiness involved too. At least at Humm.

Mike Beshore, who heads marketing at Humm, told me a little about the company and how kombucha is made there while giving me a tour.

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A selection of the bottle kombucha is available in the cooler at Humm Kombucha in Bend.(Photo: Victor Panichkul / Statesman Journal)

Humm started six years ago in Bend as Kombucha Mama by best friends Michelle Mitchell and Jamie Danek. Kombucha-making was a Mitchell family tradition that was past from mother to son to wife and then to her best friend. Mitchell and Danek set out to produce it in bulk to minimize environmental impact and to make it affordable to everyone, Beshore said.

When Kombucha Mama started, the couple brewed in a kitchen and delivered gallon jugs door-to-door like milk used to be delivered, Beshore said. Now the company is housed in a large brewery and is one of the largest producers of bottled and draft kombucha in the country. The company now offers 10 flavors: original, blueberry mint, pomegranate lemonade, strawberry lemonade, lemon ginger, apple sass, coconut lime, mate, chai and its newest flavor that will be hitting store shelves soon, mango passion fruit. Their product is available in uniquely shaped 14-ounce bottles and is also available in kegs for delivery to taprooms, restaurants and grocery stores. It is sold in 20 states. In 2014, Kombucha Mama went through a re-branding and became Humm Kombucha.

The facility in Bend houses a small taproom as well as the brewing facility and offices.

The origins of kombucha are somewhat mysterious, with roots in China, Japan and even Russia. But the process of making kombucha starts with brewing black or green teas or a combination of both. Sugar is added and then a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast, or SCOBY, is introduced to a large fermentation tank filled with the sweetened tea. The microbes consume the sugar in the tea and ferment it.

The folks at Humm call the fermentation room the "nursery." When I was guided in, I felt like I was entering something that felt like a steam room. It was moist, warm and the walls were painted a soothing lavender. Rows and rows of large tanks with tea in various stages of fermentation lined the room, each covered with a porous fabric cover. Beshore lifted one of the covers for me. Inside, the SCOBY was floating on the surface and it was working in a foamy sugar-consuming frenzy. He also explained that workers were asked not to bring negative energy into the nursery, that they should try and only bring in happy thoughts. Beshore must have sensed that I was somewhat lost at the lavender threshold.

Some time ago, a Japanese researcher was conducting experiments on water as a conductor of human emotion or energy. He used the same water in three petri dishes. One was labeled "control." On another, he marked "you're bad water," or something negative like that. On another, he marked words of praise to the effect of "you're pure and delicious water" or something like that. And then he froze all of the petri dishes. He then examined the petri dishes and found that the control dish had regular ice crystals. The negative sample had jagged and irregular ice crystals. The positive sample had ice crystals in a beautiful showflake shape.

Since humans are made up of mostly water and the SCOBY is surrounded by a water environment, the company's founders believe that the negativity can be passed on between workers and the kombucha. And so to offer kombucha that's made in the best possible environment, the workers think happy thoughts while in the nursery. Often, the owners even come in to the nursery and sing to the room of tanks and SCOBY, Beshore said.

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Workers prepare to add ground ginger to a batch of kombucha at Humm Kombucha's production facilities in Bend.(Photo: Victor Panichkul / Statesman Journal)

Workers check samples from the tanks, and when the kombucha is ready, it's piped into stainless-steel tanks and cooled to stop fermentation. Then fruit juices or herbs and spices are added to infuse flavor into the kombucha and CO2 is pumped into the tank to achieve an even level of carbonation. Some batches then go straight to bottling while others that have herbs and spices get filtered first and then goes to the bottling line.

Once kombucha is bottled or placed into kegs, it's kept refrigerated until it reaches the grocery store, restaurant, brew pub or liquor store.

Whether I buy the whole new-age approach to kombucha making at Humm or not, I can't deny that their kombucha tastes amazing. My favorite flavors have been strawberry lemonade, pomegranate lemonade and blueberry mint. But I have a new favorite: mango passion fruit. I got a special taste in the taproom. Humm has just finished bottling the new mango passion fruit flavor and started shipping to distributors, so it should be showing up at area stores soon.

Victor Panichkul is food, wine and beer columnist and loves all three and never has a bad day when he's eating or drinking.